Capcom
Capcom Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Dead Rising, Ace Attorney, Dragon's Dogma, and Marvel vs. Capcom. Established in 1979, it has become an international enterprise with subsidiaries in East Asia, Europe, and North America.
History
1979–1984: Founding and arcade games
Capcom's predecessor, I.R.M. Corporation, was founded on May 30, 1979 by Kenzo Tsujimoto, who was still president of Irem Corporation when he founded I.R.M. He worked at both companies at the same time until leaving Irem in 1983.The original companies that spawned Capcom's Japan branch were I.R.M. and its subsidiary Japan Capsule Computers Co., Ltd., both of which were devoted to the manufacture and distribution of electronic game machines. The two companies underwent a name change to Sanbi Co., Ltd. in September 1981. On June 11, 1983, Tsujimoto established Capcom Co., Ltd. to take over the internal sales department.
In January 1989, Capcom Co., Ltd. merged with Sanbi Co., Ltd., resulting in the current Japan branch. The name Capcom is a clipped compound of "Capsule Computers", a term coined by the company for the arcade machines it solely manufactured in its early years, designed to set themselves apart from personal computers that were becoming widespread. "Capsule" alludes to how Capcom likened its game software to "a capsule packed to the brim with gaming fun", and to the company's desire to protect its intellectual property with a hard outer shell, preventing illegal copies and inferior imitations.
Capcom's first product was the medal game Little League followed by Fever Chance ''. In December 1983, the video arcade Acty 24 was opened under the direct management of Capcom. It released its first arcade video game, Vulgus. Starting with the arcade hit 1942, they began designing games with international markets in mind. The successful 1985 arcade games Commando and Ghosts 'n Goblins have been credited as the products "that shot to 8-bit silicon stardom" in the mid-1980s. Starting with Commando'', Capcom began licensing their arcade games for release on home computers, notably to British software houses Elite Systems and U.S. Gold in the late 1980s.
1985–1999: Console game development
Beginning with a Nintendo Entertainment System port of 1942, the company ventured into the market of home console video games, which would eventually become its main business. The Capcom USA division had a brief stint in the late 1980s as a video game publisher for Commodore 64 and IBM PC DOS computers, development of these arcade ports was handled by other companies, however. Capcom created home video game franchises, including Resident Evil in 1996, while their highest-grossing title is the fighting game Street Fighter II, driven largely by its success in arcades.In the late 1980s, Capcom was on the verge of bankruptcy when the development of a strip Mahjong game called Mahjong Gakuen started. It outsold Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the eighth highest-grossing arcade game of 1989 in Japan, and is credited with saving the company from financial crisis.
Capcom has been noted as the last major publisher to be committed to 2D games, though it was not entirely by choice. The company's commitment to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as its platform of choice caused them to lag behind other leading publishers in developing 3D-capable arcade boards. Also, the 2D animated cartoon-style graphics seen in games such as Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and X-Men: Children of the Atom proved popular, leading Capcom to adopt them as a signature style and use them in more games.
In 1990, Capcom entered the bowling industry with Bowlingo. It was a coin-operated, electro-mechanical, fully automated mini ten-pin bowling installation. It was smaller than a standard bowling alley, designed to be smaller and cheaper for amusement arcades. Bowlingo drew significant earnings in North America upon release in 1990.
In 1994, Capcom adapted its Street Fighter series of fighting games into a film of the same name. While commercially successful, it was critically panned. A 2002 adaptation of its Resident Evil series faced similar criticism but was also successful in theaters. The company sees films as a way to build sales for its video games.
2000–2009: Transition to modern gaming systems
In the early 2000s, Capcom focused many of its resources on bringing series from arcade and earlier consoles onto more modern hardware, bringing these games out from 2D to 3D space. One of the most successful titles during this period was Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube, which received universal acclaim, was a financial success for Capcom, and led to ports to multiple systems. Other major successes include Street Fighter IV.Capcom debunked rumors that it was leaving the arcade business in 2001. While it did remain in the business in Japan, it gradually left the American market in 2003 and closed its arcade subsidiary in March 2004.
2009–2017: Struggling releases and mismanagement
Despite its successes from the previous decade, Capcom released several titles that were considered misfires during the 2010s. Both Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 were seen to lean far too much into action-oriented gameplay while forgoing the balance with the survival horror elements of the earlier games in the series. Street Fighter V was released with minimal single-player content and poor online features. Street Fighter V failed to meet its sales target of 2 million in March 2016. Capcom outsourced the next Devil May Cry title to Ninja Theory, resulting in DmC: Devil May Cry, a re-envisioning of the series that failed to resonate with players. Other newer IP like Lost Planet and Asura's Wrath also failed to gain significant audiences. Dragon's Dogma, however, was one of the few newer titles during this period to be seen as a success.Capcom partnered with Nyu Media in 2011 to publish and distribute the Japanese independent games that Nyu localized into the English language. The company works with the Polish localization company QLOC to port Capcom's games to other platforms; notably, examples are DmC: Devil May Crys PC version and its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One remasters, Dragon's Dogmas PC version, and Dead Risings version on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
In 2012, Capcom came under criticism for controversial sales tactics, such as the implementation of disc-locked content, which requires players to pay for additional content that is already available within the game's files, most notably in Street Fighter X Tekken. The company defended the practice. It has also been criticized for other business decisions, such as not releasing certain games outside of Japan, abruptly cancelling anticipated projects, and shutting down Clover Studio.
On August 27, 2014, Capcom filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Koei Tecmo Games at the Osaka District Court for 980 million yen in damage. Capcom claimed Koei Tecmo infringed a patent it obtained in 2002 regarding a play feature in video games.
In 2015, the PlayStation 4 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV was pulled from the Capcom Pro Tour due to numerous technical issues and bugs.
2017–present: Refocus on successful franchises
Following several years of unclear direction, management at Capcom changed in the mid-2010s to try to refocus the company on its successful properties. The company recognized that many of their titles during that period were attempts to bring Western game concepts into their titles but without failing to capture how these mechanics were implemented in Western games. To correct this, the company changed its approach to try to develop games that would be fun for players worldwide, rather than developing games that felt like they were niche Japanese titles. The main studios in Japan began reaching out to Capcom's other worldwide studios to collaborate on game design to appeal to a broader range of players. Additionally, Capcom began developing the RE Engine to replace the older MT Framework, helping their studios develop across a wider range of hardware including newer consoles.Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was the first game Capcom released under this new approach, which critics saw as a return to the series' roots. A similar approach was used to bring the Monster Hunter series, generally seen as a niche Japanese game due to its steep learning curve, to a broader market. Monster Hunter: World was developed to modernize the series' gameplay to simplify the learning curve. The game received critical praise and became Capcom's best-selling game as of 2025.
On January 28, 2019, Capcom announced that Sega would take over technical services for its arcade games starting in April.
On November 2, 2020, the company reported that its servers were affected by ransomware, scrambling its data, and the threat actors, the Ragnar Locker hacker group, had allegedly stolen 1TB of sensitive corporate data and were blackmailing Capcom to pay them to remove the ransomware. By mid-November, the group began putting information from the hack online, which included contact information for up to 350,000 of the company's employees and partners, as well as plans for upcoming games, indicating that Capcom opted to not pay the group. Capcom affirmed that no credit-card or other sensitive financial information was obtained in the hack.
In 2021, Capcom removed appearances of the Rising Sun Flag from their rerelease of Street Fighter II. Although Capcom did not provide an official explanation for the flag's removal, due to the flag-related controversy, it is speculated that it was done so to avoid offending segments of the international gaming community.
Artist and author Judy A. Juracek filed a lawsuit in June 2021 against Capcom for copyright infringement. In the court filings, she asserted Capcom had used images from her 1996 book Surfaces in their cover art and other assets for Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry and other games. This was discovered due to the 2020 Capcom data breach, with several files and images matching those that were included within the book's companion CD-ROM. The court filings noted one image file of a metal surface, named ME0009 in Capcom's files, to have the same exact name on the book's CD-ROM. Juracek was seeking over in damages and $2,500 to $25,000 in false copyright management for each photograph Capcom used. Before a court date could be made, the matter was settled "amicably" in February 2022. It comes on the heels of Capcom being accused by Dutch movie director Richard Raaphorst of copying the monster design of his movie Frankenstein's Army into their game Resident Evil Village.
In February 2022, it was reported by Bloomberg that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund had purchased a 5% stake in Capcom for an approximate value of US$332 million.
In July 2023, Capcom acquired Tokyo-based computer graphics studio Swordcanes Studio.
In July 2024, Capcom acquired Taiwan-based computer graphics studio Minimum Studios.